By a remarkable coincidence, folks at GetEQUAL just reminded me that ENDA has still not passed. On a related note, Congress recently rushed through a bunch of "emergency" funding to harass would be immigrants to the United States (you know, the "bad" ones that try to sneak in from Mexico).
To recap: Codifying the rights of those people? Too hot to handle in an election year (if ever).
Cracking down on the actions of those other* people? Whooo! Unanimous vote! Re-elect us all now!
--
* Obviously there are plenty of immigrants who are LGBTQ and/or have marginalized ways of gender expression (not that many policy makers know about intersectionality or anything).
Am the victim of devastating keyboard meltdown. Am left to replay various iterations of Farm Frenzy, tapping out cryptic dispatches from this keyboardless wasteland with my mouse and on-screen keyboard only when driven to it by the inhumanity of the outrageously and unthinkingly overprivileged.
Thus, I can but say to "chairman and cofounder of the Blackstone Group, one of the world’s largest private-equity firms" , Stephen Schwarzman, "Oh, bite me, you gigantic douchetrawler."
Better idea. Why don't you and the "Wall Street executive who knows Schwarzman" quoted at the end of the article bite each other. And not in a fun way, but in a spirit of penitential reflection, until you mutually arrive at a newly-humbled understanding of the ghastly proportions of your douche-vehicularity, and vow to make amends.
Go on about your business, folks. They'll be gnawing for a while.
[Wording edited slightly because I really didn't like my joking claim of being the "sole survivor" of a mock-disaster on seeing it juxtaposed with the posts on the genuine and horrifying disaster in Pakistan.]
Via
[Trigger warning for discussion of sexual harassment and assault.]
Iain sent me this piece by Tracy Clark-Flory about the introduction of women-only train carriages in Indonesia, which women can use voluntarily. Melanie Abrahams has a piece about it here, too.
Like both Tracy and Melanie, I have very mixed feelings about the introduction of segregated trains and/or segregated train cars, which is an increasingly common practice in Asia, particularly.
I absolutely support the idea of safe spaces for women, and I would, quite frankly, have been thrilled to have the option to ride in a women-only car many days when I was a regular El commuter in Chicago.
But here's the thing: Segregating women isn't really a comprehensive solution. It is, in my estimation, only a small part—the smallest, even—of what needs to be a culture-wide strategy to change attitudes about sexual harassment and assault. Giving women segregated spaces, without any public initiatives to ultimately render them obsolete, just treats the assault of women as an inevitability—which ironically reinforces the very attitudes (e.g. men are sexually compulsive and can't help but treat women's bodies as public property) that underlie sexual assault in the first place.
The main objective should be setting higher expectations of men: Their behavior toward women needs to be addressed via a public and exhaustive deconstruction of their privilege and the associated entitlement that feeds the assertion of ownership over women's bodies, combined with education about respecting women's bodily autonomy and their right to consent.
Segregated train cars don't actually solve the causes and enabling narratives of sexual harassment and assault, and, as a stand-alone "solution," may actually more deeply entrench those causes/narratives. So...I like them. But not in a void.
What do you think?
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud sponsors of Deeky's Amazing, Awesome, and Very Accurate Horoscopes.
Recommended Reading:
Andy: Poll: Nearly 6 of 10 in Rhode Island Support Marriage Equality
Lauredhel: On Unequal Pay
Thea: Sympathy Grifting: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Fraud
Bree: Back to School Fat Fears [TW for discussion of weight monitoring, dieting, and fat hatred]
Happy Ten-Year (!) Blogiversary to Big Fat Blog.
Blub Alert: Shaker Kate217 passed along Nick Galifianakis' sweet ode to his dearly departed dog, Zuzu.
Leave your links in comments...
"The rains are continuing and [with] each hour that passes the flooding is multiplying misery across the entire country. This is a mega disaster and it needs a mega response."—Neva Khan, Oxfam country director in Pakistan. "To date, only five countries—Britain, the US, Australia, Italy and Kuwait—have committed or pledged more than $5m in new funding."
Donations are urgently needed. You can find out how to help here.
Detail of a photo submitted to CNN by World Vision, a Humanitarian aid organization, which has "already delivered food and water to more than 21,000 people living in school buildings and on what's left of the main roads in Charsadda and Nowshera."Donations are urgently needed. You can find out how to help here.
20 million. The number of people in need of shelter, food, and/or emergency care because of the flooding, in Pakistan alone. Four million people are now homeless.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon describes the flooding as a "slow-motion tsunami" and notes that the number of people who have been displaced and/or need food or healthcare "is more than the entire population hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Kashmir earthquake, Cyclone Nargis, and the earthquake in Haiti—combined."
Donations are urgently needed. You can find out how to help here.
"President Obama is a committed Christian, and his faith is an important part of his daily life. He prays every day, he seeks a small circle of Christian pastors to give him spiritual advice and counseling, he even receives a daily devotional that he uses each morning. The President's Christian faith is a part of who he is, but not a part of what the public or the media is focused on everyday."So...what you're telling me is that he's Jewish?
Psaki added that "the President's strong Christian faith is what guides him through the challenges – a recovering economy, bringing troops home from Iraq, putting healthcare and financial reform implementation in place - but he doesn't wear it on his sleeve."
Dear US:
I cannot begin to tell you what a terrible, terrible idea it would be to elect Mitch Daniels our president.
Sincerely (really, I mean it),
A Disgruntled Hoosier
What's your favorite cover song? As in, "it's better than the original" in your opinion?
I have several, though this one is right at the very top of the list:
Eric Boehlert asks: When does Fox News' ugly Muslim bashing become the story?
I realize I'm repeating myself from last month when I asked why Fox News' proud race-baiting hadn't become the story, but honestly, when the most-watched cable news channel relentlessly depicts moderate Muslims as being part of a murderous cult, that's news. When it routinely provides a national forum for a hatemonger like Pam Geller who calls the president of the United States an anti-Semite and claims he's allied with Islamic terrorists, that's news.
And having the most-listened-to radio talk show host in America claim that Muslims want to worship at a house of prayer in downtown New York City so they can proclaim "victory" over victims of a terrorist attack, that's news too.
What Fox News, Limbaugh, and the rest of the GOP Noise Machine are doing today in terms of unapologetic Muslim-bashing is a disgrace. How the press is handling the unfolding story isn't much better.
by Shaker KathleenB
All I wanted to do was tell a cute story, I swear. A local theater held a Facebook contest, with a free screening for the winner. All you had to do was tell them the first movie you ever saw there, and, well, let's just say that I pestered the hell out of my dad to take me to Star Wars because I wanted to see Princess Leia, then made him take me home less than halfway through because the Jawas scared the hell out of me. Seriously, I never expected to actually WIN, because I never win anything. But I did, and now I've got a free screening for any movie I want. On any Saturday afternoon I want. For 120 (yes, one hundred twenty) people. And since I'm not sure I know that many people, or at least don't know 120 people I'd actually want to go to a movie with, I had an idea: This would make an awesome Shaker meetup! And, since this is a hell of an unexpected blessing, I want to do a little teaspooning at the same time.
So here's the deal: Any Shaker who wants to come to Muskegon, MI on September 4 to see Spirited Away and then come to... a restaurant or bar and hang out, eat, and drink (maybe not drink, I haven't ironed that bit out) is welcome. And if you can (ONLY if you can), donate what you'd spend on a night at the movies to Heifer International.
If you're interested, email me at shakerkathleenb - at - gmail - dot - com.
Emily's List, the organization which supports pro-choice women running for public office, put up this web site as part of their Sarah Doesn't Speak For Me campaign. Inveterate twit-terer Palin responded by tweeting,
Who hijacked term: "feminist"? A cackle of rads who want 2 crucify other women w/whom they disagree on a singular issue; it's ironic (& passé).It has been suggested that Palin was having trouble with her words again, and meant to call the women of Emily's List a "gaggle", which may be so (silly wimminz, like silly geese!). But I don't think it's an accident that she grabbed hold of a word which has so commonly been used to dismiss women as loud and unfeminine, and which has specifically been associated with witches, stereotyped as ugly, ungodly women who rebel against the natural order of things by cultivating illicit powers.
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
"Prison rape doesn't happen in a vacuum, but it's not inevitable, either. It's just another accepted reality in a system that dehumanizes people by design."—Michelle Chen at Colorlines, in a highly recommended article about prison rape. Earlier this week, "a coalition of civil liberties groups called on the Justice Department to finally enact structural reforms to hold attackers, and the institutions that create an abusive environment, accountable," as prison rape long ago reached epidemic proportions: "About one in every 20 people in prison were sexually assaulted last year, according to federal statistics. For juvenile inmates, the annual rate is about one in eight. The threat of sexual violence and coercion stems from both fellow inmates as well as staff, and women and girls especially are at risk of being exploited by the officers controlling their facilities."
About a year and a month ago, Shaker Alexmac guest posted about a church in Gainesville (FL) that put up a sign in its yard that proclaimed: "Islam is of the devil".
Recently the pastor of the same church declared that they were going to hold a good, old-fashioned book burning event and burn Qur'ans on September 11th. Yes, that's right.
Yesterday, however, the city denied the church a burn permit:
Gainesville officials denied a burn permit for a church that plans to burn copies of the Quran on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.That's good, right? Yes. However, sheer hatred cannot be that easily deterred:
In an e-mail sent out Wednesday, the church said, "City of Gainesville denies burn permit – BUT WE WILL STILL BURN KORANS."The fire chief said that the church will be fined if they go through with the burning--which is planned to be on the church's grounds.
How Much Is Beauty Worth at Work?: "NEWSWEEK surveyed hiring managers and job seekers about the role of beauty in the workplace. The bottom line? It pays to be good-looking."
No fatties! Women can't win! And other fun reminders of the material benefits of privilege.
[H/T to Shaker lelumarie.]
